Apple served with search warrant in Texas church massacre

Flags fly at half-staff as law enforcement officials continue to investigate the scene of a shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Texas Rangers investigating the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs have served a search warrant on Silicon Valley giant Apple Inc. and are seeking digital photos, messages, documents and other types of data that might have been stored by gunman Devin Patrick Kelley, who was found with an iPhone after he killed himself.

Court records obtained by the San Antonio Express-News show Texas Ranger Kevin Wright obtained search warrants on Nov. 9 for files stored on Kelley’s iPhone, a second mobile phone found near his body and for files stored in Kelley’s iCloud account — Apple’s digital archive that can sync iPhone files.

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The iCloud feature is an optional service. Obtaining such records, if they exist, directly from Apple could aid authorities investigating the worst mass shooting in modern Texas history.

For iPhones, Apple has clashed with the FBI in the past to protect the privacy of its customers.

In the case of the San Bernardino, California, mass shooting in 2015, which killed 14 people, the FBI tried to force Apple to create software that would unlock an iPhone owned by one of the attackers. The court dispute was finally resolved when the FBI announced it found a way to access the phone.

An Apple spokesman said the company does not comment on law enforcement matters. The court records don’t show whether authorities have obtained the files from Kelley’s phones.

Christopher Combs, the FBI special agent in charge in San Antonio whose office is helping Texas Rangers, complained last week that the FBI was unable to access the files on Kelley’s phone. Combs declined to say at the time what kind of mobile phone Kelley was carrying.

“I’m not going to describe what phone it is, because I don’t want to tell every bad guy out there what phone to buy,” Combs said.

Court records show Kelley was found with an iPhone SE, and he also had a second phone that has gone unmentioned by authorities — a low-tech LG 328BG.

via mySanAntonio.com

via mySanAntonio.com

A photo included in the application for the search warrant shows Kelley’s silver and white iPhone was spattered with blood. Investigators want access to Kelley’s phone and iCloud account to dig into his messages, calls, social media applications passwords, address books, photos, videos and data since Jan. 1, 2016.

Four email addresses belonging to Kelley have been discovered: thelifeofdevin@gmail.com, devinkelley1991@gmail.com, sevenup555@yahoo.com and kelleydevin1991@gmail.com.

Dressed in black tactical gear and body armor, Kelley was armed with a Ruger AR-556 military-style rifle when he opened fire on the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. During the Nov. 5 rampage, he killed 26 people and injured 20 others — many of them children.

A neighbor and former gun instructor for the National Rifle Association, Stephen Willeford, heard the gunfire, grabbed his AR-15 rifle and raced to the church. Kelley, armed with a handgun when he saw Willeford, exchanged gunfire and was shot twice — once in the torso and once in the leg.

Kelley drove away in a Ford Expedition. Willeford flagged down motorist Johnnie Langendorff and the pair chased the gunman.

Authorities believe Kelley killed himself during the high-speed pursuit.

According to the court records obtained Thursday, authorities found Kelley’s body lying outside the driver door of his Ford Expedition, with his head in the dirt.

A bullet had entered Kelley’s head above his right ear and exited through the back left side of his head. At least one pistol magazine was found in a holder on Kelley’s belt and his black body armor looked partly stripped off. A medication prescribed to Kelley was found in the Exhibition’s console.

Investigators discovered a pistol under his feet, and his silver and white iPhone SE was sitting on the vehicle’s front floorboard. Two days after the shooting, a second phone, the black LG model, was found in a pocket in the driver’s side door, and officials want access to the device to forensically search for evidence of capital murder.